“It wasn’t perfect, but I felt I dug myself out of a few difficult situations when I was behind on my serve,” said Murray. “Especially in the second set, [I] played some good points there, [served] a few aces.

“I will definitely need to make sure I start a bit sharper than I have in the last couple of matches, because I played a couple of sloppy service games early on. When you start playing against the big servers, you can’t really afford that.”

Murray has won 17 of his last 18 matches since the start of the clay season. He’ll face Gilles Muller in the quarterfinals after the lefty bounced out struggling defending champion Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 7-6(5).

This season the 24-year-old Dimitrov has made just two semifinals, and now has to defend semifinal points at Wimbledon.

“I don’t think I’m playing bad tennis at the moment,” said Dimitrov who has lost three of his last four matches. “I just am doing a lot of good things on the court, which really don’t discourage me to play. I’m just going to stay positive. Wimbledon is coming up. I’m going to have good time to get ready.”

Also, John Isner and Feliciano Lopez combined for an ATP 3-set record 65 aces as the American won a no-break match unsurprisingly 7-6(5), 6-7)9), 7-6(4). Isner hit a 3-set personal best 36 aces in the victory. Next for the American is Viktor Troicki who knocked out US Open champion Marin Cilic.

At the WTA event in Birmingham, Simona Halep cruised into the last eight crushing Klara Koukalova 6-1, 6-3.

“I expected a tough match because she plays very hard on grass with her type of game,” Halep said. “It’s difficult to play her on this surface but I didn’t really want to think about that – I just came out here and played my game, played my style, stayed aggressive and especially served very well in the match.

“It was a good match for me today. It was my second match on grass this year so I’m feeling better on it, and I feel no pressure – I’m just enjoying the tennis here, and enjoying playing on this nice court.”

Just frigging amazing from Andy against an opponent who was playing “out of his skin.” Never seen Andy so bouncy either.
Think I’m a weeny bit in love with Jonas, so good to see a livinh human being in Andy’s box after Ivan the inscrutable.
Gooooooo Andy!

As the first set proceeded, and it looked as if Andy was going to be blasted out of Queen’s, I thought “My nerves can’t stand this. Time for a snooze”, so I went for a lie down and returned to find Andy had worked out Muller and had in fact served more aces himself! A delightful surprise.

@ Colin
I did similar to yourself – I did go to Live commentary on the Telegraph and forced myself to have an occasional read while watching a different programme on TV. After Murray held his serve in 2nd set did I dare to watch the match.

I thought Murray played like a real champion – we were cheering and clapping – every time Jonas was on his feet so was I – terrific match.

How about Troicki v Murray – I hope they can both keep their emotions in hand —Murray did not support Troicki re. the doping situation and evidently has not changed his mind and Troicki knows it…..